Many of Us
IWD 4.0 Exhibition, Platform Exhibitions
The Store, Abbotsford Convent, 2023
Exploring the complicated and fluid experience of being a woman with chronic invisible illness, this body of work reflects its highly individual, yet collective nature.
Rooted in a dysfunctional, but visibly ‘normal’ body, this experience is unchosen and largely beyond control. No two people's experience is exactly the same, just as no two bodies are the same, but there is a common understanding among those with similar stories, passed down like a sort of family legacy. Stripped naked, the subject’s symptoms are not easily visible on their exposed flesh, yet their body language conveys the insular and unshareable nature of living in a body with ongoing, perplexing symptoms.
Other works are based on historical photographs taken in a nineteenth century hospital for women with ‘hysteria’. Black and white images are translated into colourful paintings, bringing these women into the present, exposing a history that is not stagnant, but still influences medicine and culture today.
Together the artworks reflect the singular, yet communal nature of our stories as chronically ill women.
Rooted in a dysfunctional, but visibly ‘normal’ body, this experience is unchosen and largely beyond control. No two people's experience is exactly the same, just as no two bodies are the same, but there is a common understanding among those with similar stories, passed down like a sort of family legacy. Stripped naked, the subject’s symptoms are not easily visible on their exposed flesh, yet their body language conveys the insular and unshareable nature of living in a body with ongoing, perplexing symptoms.
Other works are based on historical photographs taken in a nineteenth century hospital for women with ‘hysteria’. Black and white images are translated into colourful paintings, bringing these women into the present, exposing a history that is not stagnant, but still influences medicine and culture today.
Together the artworks reflect the singular, yet communal nature of our stories as chronically ill women.
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